


Whiskey Lullaby

by the_ocean_burned



Category: Whiskey Lullaby (Song)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 10:17:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3725155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_ocean_burned/pseuds/the_ocean_burned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basically a feely fic inspired by the song Whiskey Lullaby by Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss. Not much else to say. <br/>Trigger Warning: Suicide</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whiskey Lullaby

_Two years ago. Two years ago she left for good. Two years ago, Mariann married another man. I think Jonathan was his name. It doesn’t matter now, though. Not anymore. Not after what I’m going to do. I’m sorry, but I can’t live anymore. I don’t want to feel this pain—feel anything, really—anymore. I’m done._

_If Mari ever hears about this, which I doubt, tell her I loved her until I died._

_Finn Harper_

He set the pen down and crumpled the page in his fist. They’d find it. He knew they would. Drake—his roommate, almost as much of a lowlife as himself—had sharp eyes, for all his flaws. He already knew how this would play out. He’d be on the couch when Drake and his boyfriend, Alex, came home. As usual, Drake would be pretending to be drunk to get closer to Alex, who would play along even though he knew it was an act. They’d be playful with each other until they saw him lying still on the couch. Drake would drop the act and try to wake him up while Alex just stood there in shock. It would hurt them. He knew that. But he had to stop his own pain that tore him apart each day, no matter how selfish it was.

He sat down on the couch, clutching the paper in his fist loosely enough that they wouldn’t have to pry too hard to get it out. With trembling fingers, he reached out and grabbed the gun sitting on the table in front of him. It was just Drake’s old shotgun, but it would do the trick. After two years of alcoholism and no job, he was ready to end it all.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered one last apology before setting the cold, unforgiving barrel to his head.

He squeezed his eyes shut and pulled the trigger. The last thing he felt was his body going limp.

 

҉҉

 

Mariann stood in front of the small wooden cross and the white roses at its base, staring at the engraved name through her tears: _Finn Sebastian Harper._

The seven years that had passed since his suicide showed in the weathering of the wood, the way the roots of the willow tree that he had been buried beneath had begun to grow around the grave. She could still remember his funeral; everything had seemed too happy. The sunlight, the perfect warmth, the gentle breeze, the bright chirping of the single blue jay in the willow. She remembered her daughter, Isabel, three years old the day of the funeral, laying one of her favorite blue and yellow primroses on the grave.

Since then, she had lived with Jonathan, her husband, and had had another child, a four-year-old boy named Magnus. She had been told multiple times by multiple people that his death wasn’t her fault, but she still blamed herself, even seven years later. Over time, Finn had faded from everyone’s memory, but not hers. Never hers. She had realized that leaving him had been the worst mistake of her life.

And that was why it was time for her to go back to him.

She leaned down and placed one last rose, this one blood red, among the white flowers that were slowly wilting on the grave. She stood back up and walked over to the tree.

 

It was Daddy who found her swinging by her neck from the branches above the seven-year-old grave two hours later, Uncle Finn’s picture clutched tightly in her hand.

 

҉

 

Her funeral was two days later. It was small; just me, Daddy, Magnus, and Mommy’s sister and parents. We buried her next to Uncle Finn under the willow tree. A new cross stood next to the seven-year-old one, the name _Mariann Jackie Forster_ carved into the fresh wood.

The ceremony was short, but something made me turn as I was following the rest of my family away from the graves. In the branches of the willow tree, side by side, sat two blue jays. The had odd feather patterns: One had a black spot on the side of its head; the other had a black ring around its neck. I couldn’t help a smile as I turned away.

They were finally happy.

 

҉

 

It’s been twenty years since that day. I’m thirty now, with a husband and a daughter. I’m writing this down on the anniversary of my mother’s suicide because the details are beginning to fade, and I don’t want to forget. Neither Finn nor Mariann knew that I was watching as they killed themselves; having gone to visit my uncle the day he died and followed my mother to his gravesite. Neither of them knew that I knew how and why they died. Even now, I haven’t told anyone about my certainty that they’re together now. Every year on this day, I’ve gone back to the graves of my uncle and my mother. And, every year, I’ve seen those two blue jays, singing in the branches of the willow tree. I’m glad they eventually got a happy ending.

_From the journal of Isabel Forster, age thirty, on March 8, 1992_


End file.
